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Roger “Ram” Ramirez (September 15, 1913 – 11 January 1994) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He was a co-writer of the song “Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be?)” Ramirez was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico on September 15, 1913. He grew up in New York and started playing the piano at a young age. Ramirez’s first professional performances were in the early 1930s. In 1933 he played with Monette Moore, then with Rex Stewart and Sid Catlett in New York. He joined Willie Bryant in 1935, and toured Europe with Bobby Martin in 1937. During the first half of the 1940s Ramirez played with Ella Fitzgerald, Frankie Newton, Charlie Barnet, John Kirby, and Catlett, in addition to leading his own band.
Ramirez wrote “Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be?)” in 1942, which became a jazz standard following Billie Holiday‘s recording of it two years later. He was a freelance into the mid-1950s, when he added electronic organ to his instruments. In 1953 he was in one of Duke Ellington’s small groups, as a substitute.
Ramirez again toured Europe in 1968, this time with T-Bone Walker.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN0buFGBoxo
more...ARC Music announced today that Egyptian percussionist and composer Hossam Ramzy passed away on Tuesday, September 10th September 2019. He was 65. Hossam was undergoing treatment for a heart condition in Brazil, though the condition was very advanced.
Known as Egypt’s Ambassador of Rhythm, Hossam succeeded in injecting Egyptian rhythms into multiple projects. Hossam Ramzy worked with Jimmy Page & Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin), Shakira, Ricky Martin and A.R. Rahman, appeared on recordings by Peter Gabriel and Jay-Z, and composed music for numerous films.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NdbODkGq6c
more...Pippin the Musical second performance tonight at the Mixed Blood Theater in Minneapolis presented by Theater 55. Saturday September 14th @ 730pm Running thru September 29th 2019. 12 shows. Natalia Peterson on piano, Jamie Carter on guitar and mick laBriola percussion chair.
more...Zeta Ophiuchi (ζ Oph, ζ Ophiuchi) is a star located in the constellation of Ophiuchus. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 2.57, making it the third-brightest star in the constellation. Parallax measurements give an estimated distance of roughly 366 light-years (112 parsecs) from the Earth. ζ Ophiuchi is an enormous star with more than 19 times the Sun’s mass and eight times its radius. The stellar classification of this star is O9.5 V, with the luminosity class of V indicating that it is generating energy in its core by the nuclear fusion of hydrogen. This energy is being emitted from the outer envelope at an effective temperature of 34,000K, giving the star the blue hue of an O-type star. It is rotating rapidly and may be close to the velocity at which it would begin to break up. The projected rotational velocity may be as high as 400 km s−1 and it may be rotating at a rate of once per day.
This is a young star with an age of only three million years. Its luminosity is varying in a periodic manner similar to a Beta Cephei variable. This periodicity has a dozen or more frequencies ranging between 1–10 cycles per day. In 1979, examination of the spectrum of this star found “moving bumps” in its helium line profiles. This feature has since been found in other stars, which have come to be called ζ Oph stars. These spectral properties are likely the result of non-radial pulsations.
This star is roughly halfway through the initial phase of its stellar evolution and will, within the next few million years, expand into a red supergiant star wider than the orbit of Jupiter before ending its life in a supernova explosion leaving behind a neutron star or pulsar. From the Earth, a significant fraction of the light from this star is absorbed by interstellar dust, particularly at the blue end of the spectrum. In fact, were it not for this dust, ζ Ophiuchi would shine several times brighter and be among the very brightest stars visible.
more...Joseph Jarman (September 14, 1937 – January 9, 2019)[1] was an American jazz musician, composer, and Shinshu Buddhist priest. He was one of the first members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and a member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Jarman grew up in Chicago, Illinois. At DuSable High School he studied drums with Walter Dyett, switching to saxophone and clarinet when he joined the United States Army after graduation. During his time there, he was part of the 11th Airborne Division Band for a year.
After he was discharged from the army in 1958, Jarman attended Wilson Junior College, where he met bassist Malachi Favors Maghostut and saxophonists Roscoe Mitchell, Henry Threadgill, and Anthony Braxton. These men would often perform long jam sessions at the suggestion of their professor Richard Wang (now with Illinois University). Mitchell introduced Jarman to pianist Muhal Richard Abrams, and Jarman, Mitchell, and Maghostut joined Abrams’ Experimental Band, a private, non-performing ensemble, when that group was founded in 1961. The same group of musicians continued to play together in a variety of configurations, and went on to found the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in 1965, along with Fred Anderson and Phil Cohran.
more...Israel López Valdés (September 14, 1918 – March 22, 2008), better known as Cachao (/kəˈtʃaʊ/ kə-CHOW), was a Cuban double bassist and composer. Cachao is widely known as the co-creator of the mambo and a master of the descarga (improvised jam sessions). Throughout his career he also performed and recorded in a variety of music styles ranging from classical music to salsa. An exile in the United States since the 1960s, he only achieved international fame following a career revival in the 1990s.
Born into a family of musicians in Havana, Cachao and his older brother Orestes were the driving force behind one of Cuba’s most prolific charangas, Arcaño y sus Maravillas. As members of the Maravillas, Cachao and Orestes pioneered a new form of ballroom music derived from the danzón, the danzón-mambo, which subsequently developed into an international genre, mambo. In the 1950s, Cachao became famous for popularizing improvised jam sessions known as descargas. He emigrated to Spain in 1961, and moved to the United States in 1963, starting a career as a session and live musician for a variety of bands in New York during the rise of boogaloo, and later, salsa.
In the 1970s, Cachao fell into obscurity after moving to Las Vegas and later Miami, releasing albums sporadically as a leader. In the 1990s, he was re-discovered by actor Andy García, who brought him back to the forefront of the Latin music scene with the release of a documentary and several albums. Before his death in 2008, Cachao had earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and several Grammy Awards. He is ranked number 24 on Bass Player magazine’s list of “The 100 Greatest Bass Players of All Time”.
more...Giorgos Papasideris (Greek: Γιώργος Παπασιδέρης 14 September 1902 – 8 October 1977) was a Greek singer, composer, and lyricist of Arvanite origin. He was born on Salamis Island. After leaving elementary school, he spent his entire career working professionally in the field of traditional Greek folk music and Arvanite folk music, producing many popular recordings. He died of a heart attack in 1977 on Salamis Island. In a district of Salamis City, named Alonia in the birthplace of Papasideris, there is a bust in memory of him.
more...Harvest Full Moon on Friday the 13th tonight September 13th 2019.
The full moon will occur near apogee, which is the most distant point in the moon’s orbit. The last time this happened was in 1832, and it won’t happen again for 505 years.
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/1057/september-2019-the-next-full-moon-is-the-harvest-moon/
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Pippin the Musical opens tonight at the Mixed Blood Theater in Minneapolis presented by Theater 55. Friday the 13th (oh no) September 13th 2019 @ 730pm Running thru September 29th 2019 12 shows.
mick will be joining musicians Natalia Peterson on piano and Jamie Carter on guitar comprising our mini orchestra.
more...
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (Latin: Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Salomonici), also known as the Order of Solomon’s Temple, the Knights Templar or simply the Templars, were a Catholic military order recognised in 1139 by the papal bull Omne datum optimum. The order was founded in 1119 and was active until 1312 when it was perpetually suppressed by Pope Clement V by the bull Vox in excelso.
The Templars became a favoured charity throughout Christendom and grew rapidly in membership and power. They were prominent in Christian finance. Templar knights, in their distinctive white mantles with a red cross, were among the most skilled fighting units of the Crusades. Non-combatant members of the order, who formed as much as 90% of the order’s members, managed a large economic infrastructure throughout Christendom, developing innovative financial techniques that were an early form of banking, building its own network of nearly 1,000 commanderies and fortifications across Europe and the Holy Land, and arguably forming the world’s first multinational corporation.
The Templars were closely tied to the Crusades; when the Holy Land was lost, support for the order faded. Rumours about the Templars’ secret initiation ceremony created distrust, and King Philip IV of France – deeply in debt to the order – took advantage of this distrust to destroy them and erase his debt. In 1307, he had many of the order’s members in France arrested, tortured into giving false confessions, and burned at the stake. Pope Clement V disbanded the order in 1312 under pressure from King Philip. The abrupt reduction in power of a significant group in European society gave rise to speculation, legend, and legacy through the ages.
At dawn on Friday, 13 October 1307 (a date sometimes linked with the origin of the Friday the 13th superstition) King Philip IV ordered de Molay and scores of other French Templars to be simultaneously arrested. The arrest warrant started with the phrase: “Dieu n’est pas content, nous avons des ennemis de la foi dans le Royaume” [“God is not pleased. We have enemies of the faith in the kingdom”]. Claims were made that during Templar admissions ceremonies, recruits were forced to spit on the Cross, deny Christ, and engage in indecent kissing; brethren were also accused of worshipping idols, and the order was said to have encouraged homosexual practices. The Templars were charged with numerous other offences such as financial corruption, fraud, and secrecy. Many of the accused confessed to these charges under torture (even though the Templars denied being tortured in their written confessions), and their confessions, even though obtained under duress, caused a scandal in Paris. The prisoners were coerced to confess that they had spat on the Cross: “Moi, Raymond de La Fère, 21 ans, reconnais que [j’ai] craché trois fois sur la Croix, mais de bouche et pas de cœur” (“I, Raymond de La Fère, 21 years old, admit that I have spat three times on the Cross, but only from my mouth and not from my heart”). The Templars were accused of idolatry and were suspected of worshiping either a figure known as Baphomet or a mummified severed head they recovered, amongst other artifacts, at their original headquarters on the Temple Mount that many scholars theorize might have been that of John the Baptist, among other things.
more...The Whirlpool Galaxy, also known as Messier 51a, M51a, and NGC 5194, is an interacting grand-designspiral galaxy with a Seyfert 2 active galactic nucleus. It lies in the constellation Canes Venatici, and was the first galaxy to be classified as a spiral galaxy. Its distance is estimated to be 23 million light-years away from Earth.
The galaxy and its companion, NGC 5195, are easily observed by amateur astronomers, and the two galaxies may be seen with binoculars. The Whirlpool Galaxy has been extensively observed by professional astronomers, who study it to understand galaxy structure (particularly structure associated with the spiral arms) and galaxy interactions.
more...Tony Russell “Charles” Brown (September 13, 1922 – January 21, 1999) was an American blues singer and pianist whose soft-toned, slow-paced blues-club style influenced blues performance in the 1940s and 1950s. Between 1949 and 1952, Brown had seven Top 10 hits in the US BillboardR&B chart. His best-selling recordings included “Driftin’ Blues” and “Merry Christmas Baby“. Brown was born in Texas City, Texas. As a child he loved music and received classical music training on the piano. He graduated from Central High School in Galveston, Texas, in 1939 and Prairie View A&M College in 1942 with a degree in chemistry. He then became a chemistry teacher at George Washington Carver High School in Baytown, Texas, a mustard gas worker at the Pine Bluff Arsenal at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and an apprentice electrician at a shipyard in Richmond, California, before settling in Los Angeles in 1943.
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Leon Brown “Chu” Berry (September 13, 1908 – October 30, 1941) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist during the 1930s.
According to music critic Gary Giddins, musicians called him “Chu” because he chewed on the mouthpiece of his saxophone or because he had a Fu Manchu mustache.
Berry was born in Wheeling, West Virginia. He graduated from Lincoln High School, in Wheeling, then attended West Virginia State College for three years. His sister Ann played piano. Berry became interested in music at an early age, playing alto saxophone, at first with local bands. He was inspired to take up the tenor saxophone after hearing Coleman Hawkins on tour.
Most of Berry’s career was spent with swing bands: Sammy Stewart, 1929–1930, with whom he switched to tenor sax, Benny Carter, 1932–1933, Teddy Hill, 1933–1935, Fletcher Henderson, 1935–1937, Cab Calloway, his best-known affiliation, from 1937 to 1941. Throughout his brief career, Berry was in demand as a sideman for recording sessions under the names of various other jazz artists, including Spike Hughes (1933), Bessie Smith (1933), the Chocolate Dandies (1933), Mildred Bailey (1935–1938), Teddy Wilson (1935–1938), Billie Holiday (1938–1939), Wingy Manone (1938–1939) and Lionel Hampton (1939).
more...William Smith Monroe (/mənˈroʊ/; September 13, 1911 – September 9, 1996) was an American mandolinist, singer, and songwriter, who created the style of music known as bluegrass. Because of this, he is commonly referred to as the “Father of Bluegrass“. The genre takes its name from his band, the Blue Grass Boys, named for Monroe’s home state of Kentucky. Monroe’s performing career spanned 69 years as a singer, instrumentalist, composer and bandleader.
Monroe was born on his family’s farm near Rosine, Kentucky, the youngest of eight children of James Buchanan “Buck” and Malissa (Vandiver) Monroe. His mother and her brother, Pendleton “Pen” Vandiver, were both musically talented, and Monroe and his family grew up playing and singing at home. Bill was of Scottish heritage. Because his older brothers Birch and Charlie already played the fiddle and guitar, Bill Monroe was resigned to playing the less desirable mandolin. He recalled that his brothers insisted he should remove four of the mandolin’s eight strings so he would not play too loudly.
more...Flamenco Fridays featuring Malagueñas is one of the traditional styles of Andalusian music (flamenco), derived from earlier types of fandango from the area of Málaga, classified among the Cantes de Levante. Originally a folk-song type, it became a flamenco style in the 19th century. It is not normally used for dance, as it is generally interpreted with no regular rhythmic pattern, as a “cante libre”. It has a very rich melody with virtuous flourishes and use of microtones. Its guitar accompaniment is normally played in open position first inversion giving E for the tonic, which can be transposed by using a capo.
The singing develops on a major mode (tonic, subdominant, dominant), resolving in the corresponding Phrygian mode of the same scale. The Phrygian mode is used for the short interludes after of before verses. The usual progression is the typical of all fandangos:
- First line of singing: G7, C Major
- Second line: C Major, C7, F Major
- Third line is just a repetition of the first
- Fourth line: C Major, G7
- Fifth line: G7, C Major
- Sixth line: C Major, C7, F Major, G Major, F Major, E Major
1,300 light-years away, in the fertile starfields of the constellation Cepheus. Called the Iris Nebula, NGC 7023 is not the only nebula to evoke the imagery of flowers, though. Still, this deep telescopic image shows off the Iris Nebula’s range of colors and symmetries, embedded in surrounding fields of interstellar dust. Within the Iris itself, dusty nebular material surrounds a hot, young star. The dominant color of the brighter reflection nebula is blue, characteristic of dust grains reflecting starlight. Central filaments of the reflection nebula glow with a faint reddish photoluminesence as some dust grainseffectively convert the star’s invisible ultraviolet radiation to visible red light. Infrared observations indicate that this nebula contains complex carbon molecules known as PAHs. The pretty blue petals of the Iris Nebula span about six light-years. The colorful field-of-view stretches almost five Full Moons across the sky.
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